Scar Tissue
by fowl68
Summary: "If you're waiting for me to run away screaming from you, it's not gonna happen. You don't scare me, Alvin." No pairings.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything!

**Author's Note: **Just recently finished Xillia. I loved it. It's been a while since a game broke my heart like that. And the characters were all so distinct and unique; it was incredible. I have several more playthroughs in my future. As it stands, this is my first foray into Xillia. Not sure if I got the characterizations down, so please, let me know if something seems off.

As for the swimsuits, I found some images of the swimsuit alternate costumes for the group, so that's how I wrote them. I don't know anything beyond the trailer for Xillia 2, so it's probably going to end up being wrong when it comes out.

**For original work:**

My brother and I have started a blog for our original alternate history/fantasy series, the Sanctum Files. Below is the link, with spaces. Give us a look.

e-p-pfister . tumblr .com

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_"So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there."  
-Charlie** (Perks of Being a Wallflower)**_

* * *

There was a place in Xian Du, closer to the residential districts, in the diamond-shaped plaza that locals would sell their wares where there were stairs leading into the river. The stone stairs were worn and smooth from decades of people running up and down them, of the river flooding because of late summer storms. This was where generations of people came for relief from the powerful sun. Children leapt and chased each other, splashing their elders sitting on the steps. Teenagers raced for the opposite wall, their peers cheering and shouting.

And this was how summer worked in Xian Du.

"A vacation was a good idea!" Leia said, tucking Elise's hair up into a bun before she went in the water. "Although, I'm actually surprised you managed to get away, Jude."

Jude was sitting on the steps, his legs stretched out into the water as he waited for them. "Since all of our schedules actually managed to coincide, I called in some of my sick days."

"Sick days?" Alvin repeated, amused. "You didn't run out of those for the journey?"

Jude opened his mouth to reply, but Leia overrode him. "He overworks himself and everyone knows it. So they can't really complain when he wants to take a weekend off." Leia patted Elise's shoulder. "Okay, you're all done. Don't forget to put on sunscreen! Otherwise you'll end up looking like a lobster."

"You too," Jude reminded her. "I don't want to explain to your mom why you're extra crispy."

"That was _one time_!"

Alvin chuckled to himself, watching them. It must be a thing about old friends that they could act like siblings one minute and be romantic the next. Not that Jude and Leia had actually done anything about whatever lay between them, at least to Alvin's knowledge.

"You ready, Elise?" Jude asked, smiling at her.

She eyed the water carefully. _(She's told them about how she had left Teepo behind. Alvin is both incredibly proud of her and a little scared for her. The lack of him has to leave her fragile and the world is a cruel place. But somehow, he thinks she'll be okay)_ "…I-I don't know how to swim."

Jude held out a hand to her. "That's okay. It's why you have the floaty." It was even patterned something like Teepo, just for her. "I'll be right next to you, don't worry."

"We won't let you drown," Rowen assured her. He wasn't going swimming, but he'd found a comfortable spot in the shallows where he could sit and enjoy the relief from the heat.

Elise glanced between them and carefully walked down the few steps separating her and Jude. "…Okay."

Alvin watched as Jude led her into the water, step by step and he grinned when they froze as the water reached their legs, their chests. "Too cold?" he called.

"I don't see you getting in either," Jude replied tartly.

"I'm fine right where I am." He was just sitting on the steps, ankles in the water. _(He will never tell anyone, but sometimes, he wakes up at night with the feeling of water filling his lungs…)_ "You kids go have fun."

"You sure?" Leia asked as Jude had already turned back to Elise. She tugged her hair into a ponytail and pulled an orange and white cap on. "The water's great." She tried to pull her ponytail through the back of her cap, but she was having trouble. "Here, can you get this for me?"

She ker-plopped in front of him so he could pull the ponytail through, but his eyes caught on something by her shoulder blade. A scar, still new enough to be a pale reddish-brown. Alvin's left shoulder—his bad one—shifted in its socket. _(He still remembers watching her fall, staring in horror as his arm took the shot without his mind telling it to. How can she trust him enough to turn her back on him?)_

"…Leia?"

"Hm?" She stood, tightening the ponytail, looking back at him. "What's up?"

"…Your shoulder…how is it?" How badly had he damaged it? Had it been permanent?

"…Oh." Leia had to arch her back and twist to even catch a glimpse of the scar. "The shoulder's fine." She smiled. "Jude's really good at what he does. He couldn't do much about the scarring besides give me some lotion to rub on it so the skin doesn't get all tight, but I can move it and stuff just fine."

"…Does it hurt?"

She shook her head. "Only when a storm's coming."

"Leia…I—" The apology stuck in his throat. He wasn't good at them, had never apologized for any of the things he'd done in his life. But this one—this one needed it.

She crouched so that they were eye level. "Alvin, listen to me. Jude told me what you said to him after it happened—that you didn't mean it. And maybe you did, maybe you didn't. But the way I figure it, after having fought with you for so long, is that if you'd meant to kill me, you wouldn't have missed. Not on any of those shots that you fired that day. If you really wanted to kill either of us, you wouldn't have hesitated with Jude. Now, I'm not saying I forgive you. I don't even know if I can—I want to—but sometimes, that's not an easy thing to do. But I'm saying I get it. And if you're waiting for me to run away screaming from you, it's not gonna happen. You don't scare me, Alvin."

"I should. I'm—I'm not a good person."

"You're right." Leia knelt on the step below him, settling more comfortably. "You're not a good man. Not yet. But you're trying to be better than you are and…and I think that means more, somehow." Her cheeks pinked a little. "I don't know if that makes sense, but—that's what I think."

_(He doesn't know how she does it, how she has the courage to stand here and look at him like that. He doesn't even have that kind of courage; he avoids mirrors, avoids looking at what he's done. He wants to be brave, like Milla and Jude and Leia are. Wants to have the bravery to walk his own path and he's almost there, he really is, but it doesn't feel like it's enough yet and he doesn't know if it ever will be)_

The words wouldn't come out right. So Alvin found different ones, easier ones. "Much as I appreciate the heart-to-heart, didn't you want to work on that tan line of yours?"

Leia sputtered a little, her cheeks reddening further._ "_Oh, shut up, Alvin!"_ (She gets it though. She'd been a nurse—she'd gotten good at hearing what patients don't say and perhaps that matters more) _


End file.
